Tuesday-night storm causes minor problems
<p>A lightning strike Tuesday night stripped the bark from this tree near Roaring Creek Road in Whitefish.</p>
A thunderstorm caused some minor mayhem Tuesday evening in the Flathead Valley, although its impact was largely confined to the Whitefish area.
The Whitefish Fire Department was dispatched to Fox Hollow Lane at 7:02 p.m. and Spokane Avenue 12 minutes later for power-line emergency calls.
At 7:30 p.m., a tree was downed on Fourth Street at Spokane Avenue, falling into the north side of the street and blocking an alley, according to a Whitefish Police Department dispatch log.
Flathead Electric Cooperative reported only a few very small outages and electricity was restored quickly.
“As strong as that storm and the winds were, it was pretty uneventful,” Flathead Electric Director of Communications Stephanie Wallace said. “It just didn’t wreak as much havoc as we thought it would.